Well, I suppose Questor won't care because he won't be coming back. But for the rest of our guests, here is my reply:
The reason the "moderators" have not done anything about this situation is because we don't have any moderators. I'm the one and only administrator, and I take care of every aspect of the website, which leaves me little time to be a moderator. My main concern when I visit here is answering questions, just like a normal user.
For better or worse, people have always been free here to engage in discussions freely and openly without worrying about whether they would be banned. I've even allowed people to advertise products from competing websites. I have maintained this liberal approach since the beginning, and I'm not about to change it now.
That doesn't mean that certain topics will not be deleted from time to time. Spamming is forbidden, as are off-topic discussions. Anytime you break the rules, your message will be deleted. But the simple reason I haven't deleted any of the topics domainted by our friends "Don" & "Anonymous" so far is because they haven't actually broken any rules.
One might make the case that there is occasional flaming involved, but it's very questionable. Certainly you can sense a frustration in some of their words, but that happens during disagreements. There is a difference between a heated disagreement and an all-out flame war, and I think it's fair to allow for some rivalry. For the most part, they do still stick to the discussion of the topic.
I think we can all agree that the biggest annoyance is not the occasional derrogatory comment, or even the nitpicky subject matter that seems to interest only them. What's most irritating about them is simply the fact that they have domainted the message board with their discussions in recent months. But there is nothing in our forum rules that limits the number of messages one can post, nor do I think there should be. However, enough people have chimed in that I feel the need take some sort of action. So here's my solution for now:
I will not ban anybody, and I won't even delete Don & Anonymous's discussions. I have, however, moved about a dozen of the topics dominated by these guys to the back of the pile, leaving the first two pages of the message board free of their rants. They (or anybody else) will still have the ability to find these topics and post additional replies if they so desire. But it won't be quite as easy, and may slow them down a little.
In the coming weeks, if I find more than one or two Don/Anonymous topics on the front page, I'll move them back also. But if it turns out to require too much of my attention, I reserve the right to change my strategy in one way or another.
Fair?
Regards,
Jonathan
(NOT the moderator, just the administrator)